Building an Economy in D&D 3.x *Help*

[SirAlexanderCourt]

Good to see you dandu.
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For those who have taken a history or economics class, land is the chief source of wealth in primitive civilizations.

 

[Greenfield]

A good point.

One thing that we easily forget in our age of industrial farming, is that for centuries wealth began with food.

You needed it to survive, that much is obvious. But you needed efficient farming if you wanted to have anything else. Your farms needed to produce an "excess", above and beyond the needs of the farmers themselves, if you wanted to have a city, a place with people occupied with something other than food production. You can't have soldier, iron workers, weavers, merchants, scribes and scholars or yes, even adventurers if everyone was tied to a plow to prevent starvation.

In ancient Japan, their currency was the Koku, a coin that represented a measure of rice, enough to feed a farmer for one year. Food *was* the foundation of their currency, their economy.

And land is where food comes from. Control the land and you control the food production. Control the food and you control everything.

Now the D&D economy is rather famously broken. Magic, and the cost of magic items, rips any conventional vision of the economy to shreds. But that affects the individual more than the world at large. Why? Because the cost of magic is so high that for most situations it's more efficient to do things the hard way.

So work with the classic approaches, and leaven the mix with magical aid.

 

[Dozen]

Some small cuts and bonuses I've made use of before:
1. Grab the leftover bones from the pasture(or battlefields) for bonemeal, bone china and other crafts. At the very least, you could cook bone broth or just eat the marrow.
2. Spin thread from cow tail hair. Maybe your own hair. A little gross, but why waste it? Everyone cuts it once in a while anyway.
3. After your gardens are up and running, there are also quite a lot kinds of common weeds you can prepare as cheap food(think a copper per serving) or give to your pigs. Make sure none of them are poisonous!(Or use them as poison.)
4. Have the dwarves carve figurines or sling bullets out of rocks lying around when they don't have anything better to do for a small boost.
5. Watch out for other, often overlooked natural resources, like fine sand, clay, moss, etc. Get creative.

 

[Blackwarder]

Some interesting blog posts by Alex the developer of ACKS.

Starting from the Ground Up...Literally
Starting from the Ground Up, Part II
The Demographics of Heroism

And the rest of the blog posts are pretty interesting too.

Warder

 

[Ferghis]

We are all level 6 currently but nearly 7.. one of us is a druid and there are no primary wizards in the party at the moment. We actually have two druids but on is a half dragon so isn't as high in level.

If you have two druids in your party, you should be able to grow a lot of stuff very well. Many harvests per season should be possible (or in the case of trees, per growth cycle). Just be careful about flooding the market with too much of the same thing, causing prices to drop.

Also, the fighter should be good at training a militia, so you can charge for that, or use it as a common benefit to provide security.

 

[Lyrad8791]

Thanks for all the info you guys.

We are now level 7 and I have hired laborers to make a road and bridge from my fort to the capital city 21 days ride away through nasty forest over a large river and across some plains. I am also being paid for all the stone used in this project by removing it from a dwarven mine as they carve out the place, increasing their mining speed due to less time moving stone.

In the end, I am doing it out of pocket instead of going to the capital for a contract. This way, I can have people pay a toll to use the bridge and turn that into a source of income as well.

I have the fighter in the party crafting armor to sell and for the soldiers guarding the walls.

I have one of the druids carving trinkets and toys and other such things to sell as well. The other druid is a new player and honestly just sits around and rolls a few dice to kill stuff once in a while. She tries but she is rather new.

I currently have a population of 60 people living at the keep now, most of which specialize in farming or ranching.

I have a small group of hob-goblins that I rescued from a being killed by undead and they agreed to live nearby in peace and will work leather for the town in return for safety and food if needed. Most of the fighting types in their clan were killed prior to my meeting them.

Thanks for the links, ideas, and other information. You have been helpful. If you can think of more I am all ears.

 

[haakon1]

Ah yes right now I am waiting on people to move in from outlying city's and towns. I was given the rights to the area. As much as I could hold to quote them because its a dangerous area.
...
Currently there is no war going on within the kingdom I'm in that I know of, and since I am in a Ravenloft era of the place there will be a bit of difficulty with attacking other realms sometimes.

So what do the outlying cities and towns need? If you know what they lack/import, maybe you could supply it.

Also, with the rights to the land in the area, have you considered imitating the US Homestead Act of 1862? Give 160 acres of free land to any farmer who will build a house there and farm it for 5 years. Assuming land is scarce/peasants are land poor, you'd get people to move in, and you'll create an internal market for other goods, and a tax base. 40 acres and a mule might do (the original idea for freed slaves) if the land is relatively fertile/well-watered (unlike most of the American West), and it likely fit better for medieval technology/desire to be near each other for defense.

Finally, Ravenloft is a scary place. The offer of defending the people, with refugee at your castle against worst badness than you is pretty much how warlords became the nobility in the Dark Ages. That could be part of your homestead offer, and it gives your DM a hook for adventures. "Something is killing the cattle in the outer homesteads, how will you stop it?"

You could also actively go seek immigrants or refugees to settle the area. My PC's who have a steading recently found a group of refugees in a town, and paid for livestock and farming gear to get them to move to the Borderlands to farm free land. I figure it was a good plan, so I hand-waved that it's going on, as the PC's are adventuring elsewhere, with a Steward and some retired PC's taking care of the place.

 

[haakon1]

Some interesting blog posts by Alex the developer of ACKS.

Starting from the Ground Up...Literally
Starting from the Ground Up, Part II
The Demographics of Heroism

Cool stuff, Warder.

I like it that he says 30 acres is about right for a peasant farm, and I like his view on levels, which fits with my own view for 3.5e (my favorite system) that playing after about 13th level has no point -- it's just too complicated and otherworldly for me.

<<It also lets us benchmark some famous heroes based on their reputation and area of operation:
•Bilbo, most famous adventurer in the shire, was a 6th level Thief.
•The Castellan of the Keep on the Borderlands, lord of a march, was a 6th level Fighter.
•Sir Tristan, the best knight from the county of Cornwall, was a 7th level Fighter.
•Robin Hood, hero of Nottingham County, was an 8th level Explorer.
•Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, the best thieves in Lankhmar, are a 9th level Explorer and 9th level Thief.
•Sir Gawain, the best knight from the principality of Orkney, was an 11th level Fighter.
•Beowulf, who arrives to deal with the threat to the small kingdom of the Geats, was a 12th level Fighter.
•Lancelot and Roland, the best in all of Dark Ages England and France respectively, were 12th level Fighters.
•Merlin, the best magician in all of England, was a 12th level Mage.
•Conan, conqueror of the kingdom of Aquilonia, was a 13th level Fighter.
•Thoth-Amon, most powerful sorcerer-priest in Stygia, was a 13th level Chaotic Cleric.
•Achilles, the best warrior on either side of the largest war of Antiquity, was a 14th level Fighter.
•Elric, most powerful sorcerer of the vast Melnibonean Empire, was a 14th level Spellsword.>>

 

[Argyle King]

You said that you have a druid.

Have the druid tame some bees. Make honey. There are a lot of different uses for honey. You could make mead with it.

 

[Dozen]

Have the druid tame some bees. Make honey. There are a lot of different uses for honey. You could make mead with it.

On that note, amaranth extracts can be used as miticide to protect your bees. I'd give it a DC 15 Craft(Alchemy) check, and you can still eat the weed afterwards.(I'm starting to sound silly pushing this... My knowledge of nigh-useless trivia bites me back. Who would have thought?)

Do you have any trade agreements with the surrounding settlements yet? A guaranteed market for your goods could increase your net gain considerably.